Tree and Brush Work Time

Into every woodland and chaparral property, some tree and brush work must fall. And late July is a good time - the plants are dry, so cutting won't open them up to infection, and the birds have finished nesting. Recently we had a culling and clearing around the property, hiring a tree firm, Los Primos, to do the work.

On the south slope we had dead wood removed.

On the north slope, mostly bay tree removal. In the center are resprouting bay trees. I don't have a picture of them gone - Maybe in the next post.

Close up of a bay tree getting too big, just behind the pool fence

Here's the bay tree at a distance - doesn't look so large but, it was actually growing fast

Behind and amid the bay tree, some light-deprived madrones, now visible - we hope they will thrive now

On the north - woodland - slope, sadly, we removed all California bay trees. Previously removed trees that regrew we had trimmed back to stumps and treated (with high nitrogen fertilizer).

The reasons: I have found California bay laurel trees to be "weedy" on our property. They grow often and vigorously and tall. And they host the SODS pathogen that kills the native oaks. So I have reluctantly decided to "edit them out" of the landscape on the property that I'm actively managing. There are bay trees beyond, and a huge one on our road, so big I can't get it all in one picture.

part of a bay that rivals a redwood in height - and is very wide too.

I also pruned back the toyon that grows between the pool above and the path that wraps around this north-facing valley (north, north-east, and north-west). This twenty- to thirty-foot wide and horrendously long strip along the north valley is what I'm going to focus on in fall planting - even though it is very weedy, with grasses and other unidentified aggressive things (not natives I know that). I've found that once I just get in there and garden an area, I manage the weeds more actively.

I did all the thinning and clearing of the upper part of the slope myself. The bay showing on the right is gone now.

The area below that upper strip, I will just weed whack to about 15 inches and that's all. I will grit my teeth and take a leaf from Scarlet O'Hara's book, declaring: "I'll think about that tomorrow!" or in my case, "Next year!"

I've been working out what to plant on this strip there - and I've been gathering seed on other nearby similar areas where I have permission to gather, and I'm excited to get going. I'll also put a lot of tried and trusted plants I've been growing for a few years.

In the next post, I'll share my plant list for this area, mostly "restoration" type plants - I have seeds or plants of a lot of plants, locally sourced.

Mr Woodrat doing some trail maintenance behind the toyons